BY JOHN MUSGRAVE
As Brits reel at the scale of the Labour administration’s perfidy it is essential to ask: Why? Why is the Starmer administration doing this? Let us frack down with jack-hammer vengeance to find the answer.
Why seek to rejoin the EU when 2TK (Two Tier Keir) said he’d do no such thing. Why impose Net Zero when he must know it’s destroying the economy? Why avoid facing up to the grooming gang scandal? Why the abject failure to get a grip on illegal immigration?
Facile arguments won’t do. We know that Starmer always had every intention of rejoining the EU. Likewise carrying forward Net Zero is simply a response to imagined popular demand. The government assures us it is in fact moving against the gangs – both traffickers and groomers. Yeah, right.
The underlying reasons for these and other betrayals can be summed up in one word. Grasp that and the solution emerges, cool and clear.
The malaise that grips 2TK and his ilk is simply this: FEAR. They, the blob and the establishment are terrified of a future which is both unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Take rejoining the EU. At base Starmer – and the Remainers he represents – do not believe Great Britain can survive on its own. To them the UK is a post-colonial embarrassment, the last rotten tooth of an empire which like Atlantis has sunk beneath the waves. The Remainers ignore the good work done by Liz Truss in stringing together several post-Brexit trade deals – all now threatened by the Euro-apostasy agreed last week. They play down the willingness of the Americans to cut a trade deal mutually advantageous to both countries. To them it’s all just too uncomfortable.
Their fear goes deeper than that. Germany and France set up the EU – or EEC as it was – back in the 1950s, having concluded that neither side could win a major land war in Europe. After four major wars – World War Two, World War One, the Franco-Prussian War 1870-71 and the Napoleonic Wars – this is an understandable viewpoint. The European Union projects an avuncular reassurance that nothing onward is going to happen. Political ideologies and passions have been dampened down. The abiding philosophy is all about playing it safe, being cautious and not taking risks. It is a strategy based on fear.
Similarly those who support the Net Zero agenda sincerely believe that if we do not abolish fossil fuel emissions we will burn. Scorched survivors will see deserts replace meadows and fire storms rage Hamburg-style across the forests and fiefdoms of our blessed west.
The Grooming Gangs scandal sees the government at its most powerless. To move against the rape culture endemic among the perpetrators is to be deemed racist and phobic. Interestingly such concerns seem to eclipse the rights and interests of the young victims. Labour – dependent on minority votes – cannot act.
Immigration is another question altogether. The far left has always favoured immigration on the basis that new and ill educated immigrants will vote for them. Not for them the ominous truth that many young men of military age turn up attracted by a free-for-all social welfare system, party girls of easy virtue and a give-away crime culture. Take what you like from a shop; so long as it is not valued at 200 quid or over no one will come after you.
Furthermore Labour knows it has lost control of the streets. Look at the Hamas demos to witness that. Labour doesn’t have the stomach to intercept the boats with all the attendant risk of capsize and drowning. Still less could it risk contravening international law by towing the inflatables back into French territorial waters. Immigrants are housed in up market hotels and houses. Why? Think how it would look to the chatterati if they were incarcerated in detention centres. The memory of internment camps in Northern Ireland is still too recent. It wouldn’t be long before the press opened up the old canard about the British inventing the concentration camp in the Boer War. Labour is running scared of its own shadows.
Fear has emasculated not only our government but the entrepreneurial class, executives and legions of managers and clipboard apologists. Fear has caused big business to plough millions into DEI initiatives. Fear of consequence governs the running of companies. And every step of the way a business person has to demonstrate compliance because he cannot be trusted to act on his own initiative. Nothing must be left to chance. Everything must be reviewable and controllable. We are now paying the price for the last 30 years of losing our nerve. For we have become a nation of jobsworths – ‘It’s more than my job’s worth.’ I say ‘we’ because it affects every single one of us.
What is to be done?
Two suggestions: Make of them what you will.
A quiet revolution is stalking the realm. Join it. Country squires, urban viziers, dark knights, land girls and boadicean andartes have realised that the greatest enemy lies within us. Face down our fears, the new argument runs. Scaremongering and psycho-nihilism are tools of total control by a discredited chinless elite. Think pandemic and global warming – they were trying to terrify us into submission. But look at them: No one on the front benches has experience of running a commercial business or commanding men under fire.
First off, stop apologising for your faith. Stand up for patriotism. Delight in tradition, old pubs, P G Wodehouse, R S Surtees, May Poles and morris dancing.
Many squires attempt to fly under the radar. Nowhere is this more true than in the hunting, shooting, fishing community. Country sports are at the spearpoint of the push back. Shoots need beaters to walk up. Hunts need support. Hunting starts late August. This year get involved. No horse needed. Turn up and cheer on hounds. Follow on foot or bike, but follow. Be sure to opine loudly about this. ‘Sorry, I can’t make the Rainbow Pride vegetable barbecue as I shall be fox hunting.’
Buy British – patronise farm shops, local fish markets and game butchers. A multitude of strategies will present themselves as the personal pushback is thought through.
Objecting to woke curricula at your local PTA meeting is excellent policy. Insisting on a carnivorean alternative when dining with vegetarians is great fun. Telling rude jokes in the pub, smoking cigars in the high street and singing ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’ whilst working out in the local park is liberating. Working out is a must. For the revolution demands both physical and mental fitness.
In one of the more heart rending scenes on ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ new star, Harriet Cowan 24, describes the loneliness of farming and mentions young farmers. She’s known several who have already taken their lives because of depression.
Whilst there is no easy answer to serious depression I found consistent physical exercise really helped. Many of us have in our background some loose history of fitness. Once a paratrooper in the Foreign Legion, admittedly 50 years ago, my alter ego still thinks he can run. He still holds down a part-time job as a trail layer for the local fox hunt. This already means training for the next season, overcoming pulled muscles and twisted vertebrae. It’s comparatively simple to start hiking and throw in the odd hundred yard jog. Cycling, walking and swimming help.
Amateur workouts are easy to structure. Build a garage gym. Get hold of a couple of dumbbells or heavy rocks and start lifting. Do not be put off by the image of lycra-clad fitness freaks. I work out early listening to Joe Rogan podcasts with a mug of hot tea to hand. Exercise builds physical and mental fitness.
How delightful to note that according to the woke-left, men working out is proof of their toxic masculinity. How good to mention in politically correct company the joys of throwing a kettlebell around. If possible throw in mixed martial arts. In my case it’s a pillow stuffed with carpet which I box for rounds of two minutes each.
Mental strength comes from stretching the mind just as physical strength comes from stretching the body. To do this, concentrate on something you don’t understand like a foreign language, an economic treatise or a classic. Squires need to equip themselves for the serious challenges that lie ahead during the next 3 to 4 years.
This is nowhere more true than in the farming and family firm community. Ageing squires need to outlive this Labour administration to avoid incurring inheritance tax. Above all by developing physical fitness and mental strength we develop the ability to rise above the nihilistic doomsayers that patrol our shortening horizons.
The woke-past may have been cool for cats, but the future belongs to the lions who dare roar.
We can win this if we build strength and confidence. It is not enough to look to a political leader to set right all that is wrong. The revolution starts within us.
John Musgrave lives, hunts and runs in the west country. His pro-hunting novel ‘Corsica Girl’ is available on Amazon.